Seren woke, the weight of her dream pressing down on her like the heaviness of a truth that didn't belong to her. She had seen the mirror—a vast, obsidian thing that reflected nothing. It gnawed at the edges of her thoughts, pulling her deeper into a memory that felt both distant and imminent.
She left her dorm room before dawn, following the instinct that had stirred in her dreams. The air outside was damp, the city of Kaelmire still asleep. The stone streets echoed with her footsteps as she made her way to the Hall of Echoes, a place the Seminary's faculty warned students to avoid—though no one ever explained why.
The hall was quiet, its vastness stretching before her like a promise. Aether was already there, standing near the center, his dark cloak fluttering against the cold breeze that blew through the cracked windows.
"Did you come here to find out why you're here?" Aether's voice was soft, yet it carried in the empty space.
She didn't need to answer. He had known her question before it formed.
"Everything in this city," he continued, "has been built on a lie. Even the stars above us aren't as they appear. And the worst part is..." He paused, turning to face her. "You and I, we're not even part of it. We're something else entirely."
Seren felt the coldness of the stone beneath her feet and realized with a chill that she hadn't even noticed how the walls had shifted—until now. They were moving, subtly, like they had their own life. They didn't speak aloud, but they whispered something only Aether could hear.
Her heart quickened.
"Do you hear them?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Aether gave her a sharp, almost imperceptible glance. "The city speaks to those who know how to listen," he said, his eyes briefly clouding with something unreadable. "It tells you what you want to hear, but it never tells you the truth. Not the real truth."
The air around them seemed to tighten as if Kaelmire itself was listening. Aether's gaze darkened. He reached into his cloak and pulled out an old coin—tarnished, worn, with no engraving. He flicked it between his fingers, watching it tumble through the air.
"It was never supposed to happen," he muttered under his breath.
Seren watched the coin's descent, and when it hit the ground, the world seemed to pause—just for a second. She bent down to pick it up, but something in the air stopped her. The shadows in the hall were growing, twisting, pulling away from the edges of reality.
Aether stepped back, his eyes narrowing. "This was a warning. A call."
A distant, ethereal hum rang through the walls, like the sound of a bell that no longer existed. Seren looked up to see the mirrors on the wall cracking, but instead of breaking apart, they reflected nothing. Black voids where once there had been something real.
"No one else hears it," Aether said, more to himself than to her. "Only those who were never meant to be here can."
Seren felt the weight of the air around them shift. The room was alive with something ancient, something forgotten. A shadow of a god.
"Who's calling?" she whispered, her voice barely audible against the growing sound.
"Someone who shouldn't have been forgotten," Aether replied, his expression unreadable. "And I'm the one who's going to stop them."
---
The moment hung between them like a thread pulled too tight. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the sensation broke. The shadows stopped moving. The hum faded.
Aether exhaled, his eyes flicking toward the door.
"We need to go," he said. "There's something beneath this city—something that isn't just alive. It's waiting."
Seren didn't need to ask what he meant. She could feel it now, too—the pulse beneath the earth, deep and relentless.
They walked out of the hall together, but as the door shut behind them, the distant echo of a voice lingered in the air, calling out to them both.
"You cannot run from the truth. It has already found you."
---
To be continued…